It is 0920 on Thursday morning and I am whizzing down the M621 on my way to Redbrick and thinking about the work I'm about to do and hoping today that I will make some headway with reality. You see I have a problem with reality. No, really. I have this compulsion to depict the reality of the subject in an obsessively literal way and to pursue it until the living bejeezers is squeezed out of the image. Tom reminds us that when we are separated from the subject, be it model, landscape, still life or whatever, the only reality that remains is the image we have created. I accept this truth wholeheartedly, but still confess to the need to capture much of the reality, the essence of the subject, within the image. I don't know why its important to me, but it is. It is an essential part of any progress I might make, otherwise it just feels like a fudge if I side-step this issue. To capture reality, one must first recognise it; see the essential components and disregard the frippery. This is my challenge. Here is a true example from last Thursday.

I turn off onto the A62, past the hellhole that is IKEA and into eastern Batley. Here is reality. It is depressed Britain: the closed down shops, the forest of 'For Sale' and 'To Let' signs, the strings of grubby cafes and takeaways, the teenage mothers pushing their buggies and the old man curled in a shuttered doorway ('Enterprise Opportunity!' the sign above him says), his sleeping hand like a talon around his can of Special Brew. A stark and uncomfortable reality.

Yet traffic lights allow a more considered look. The bent, silver-haired road sweeper shares an apparently hilarious joke with a passing van driver, the man in the dingy takeaway is polishing the ancient formica top to an inch of its life while mouthing the words to a song I cannot hear and the chubby infant gurgles up at his child mother to be rewarded by a broad smile of unadulterated love. There is happiness here. Same sights, two different perceptions of reality. I just had to look a bit harder.

For me there's a need to look a lot harder and more critically at subjects to recognise the essential elements before making any marks and I may have found some serendipitous clues to help. I recycle boards and canvasses after life drawing, keeping very few images. The acrylics I paint over, the oils I scrub off with turps. An attempt to obliterate a poor caricature of Roger with an unintentionally thin acrylic wash, like a thick opaque glaze I suppose, produced a very different image, stronger and in many senses better than the original by obliterating weak detail and retaining the stronger. In an opposite direction scrubbing out last week-end's portrait of Lin Lee produced a somewhat minimalist, almost pop art image of her features framed by dark hair that refused to be scrubbed away. Not a finished work by any means, but one that had more of the "reality" of the subject than the one with all the paint on!

Sue D-Y is taking the image behind the image idea further by painting on polythene sheet with oil. Brave? You bet. Last Thursday, as you can see, she used a previous study as backing behind the polythene, building up a series of image layers. Watch this space, its going to be interesting. I'm not going to say more, hoping that Sue will write a blog soon and let us have her thoughts.

As for the other images from Thursday, no critiques from me. In fact, I liked them all for different reasons, from Tom's snarling androgynous Medusa to Barry's balanced, delightful piece and Russell obviously in peak form ready for the fray. But there again those are just my perceptions.....

PERCEPTION: The ability to see, hear or become aware of something through the senses. Oxford Dictionaries

June 22, 2014

I looked it up on Wikipedia - Portrait painting is a genre in painting where the intent is to depict the visual appearance of the subject. The term is usually applied to the depiction of human subjects.

Now on Saturday the intent was most definitely there and the spirit was willing but my handling of the watercolour was weak. Well weak in a heavy handed sort of way. With watercolour less is more and more is definitely overcooked. Sometimes it favours you by sheer chance, it is a fickle medium, capricious and faithless, its’ mood is dependent on the weather, the temperature, the paper, your mood, the music from downstairs and anything else you can think of but it will not let you impose your will on it.

Back to Wikipedia, ’in addition portrait painting can also be made in other media such as etching, lithography, photography and digital media. Portrait painting can be, full length, half length, head and shoulders, as well as profile, three quarters view or full face with varying degrees of light and shadow’

So did I take time to consider all these aspects in preparation for portrait painting day? NO, I did not. I rushed about like a mad woman last thing on Friday night – took ages to un stick an old water colour sheet from where I left it on a ‘Ken Bromley perfect paper stretcher’ weeks and weeks ago, soaking it in the bath to peel it off, re stretch it and use the other side. Then thought’ that’ll do for tomorrow’. I really do know that is not the proper way to approach a decent watercolour painting

‘A well executed portrait is expected to show the inner essence of the subject (from the artist’s point of view) or a flattering representation not just a physical likeness. Aristotle said the aim of art is to present not just the outward appearance of things but their inner significance. Charles Dickens thought there were only two styles of portraiture ‘the serious’ and ‘the smirk’.

According to Wikipedia artists usually attempt a fairly representative likeness. The model has to concentrate on a sort of distant stare in order to remain still and she cannot smile as that would be too difficult to hold for any length of time therefore the mouth is relatively neutral. (I beg to differ see my drawing of Richard last Thursday). Consequently most of the facial expression and mood has to be created through the treatment of the eyes. Apparently Gordon C Aymer stated ‘the eyes are the place one looks for the most complete, reliable and pertinent information about the subject’. Also in portrait painting a sense of power or lack of it can be insinuated by personal adornments or the lack of these.

The question is do I actually take into account all these previously stated criteria when faced with the blank sheet in front of me? Yes I do take time to try to ‘tune in’ by making one or two small sketches and in some of my more successful pieces I know that during the execution of the painting these considerations have been an important part of it but not as a deliberate pre meditated intention, more as an assimilation process, a coming together as the work progresses.

I am reading about the unruly Queen Caroline at the moment and there is a beautiful meaningful portrait on the front cover which ticks all the boxes of the previously stated criteria with expressive eyes, a cherubic mouth and the balefully trusting look. Without reading the text one can see that Princess Caroline was an innocent, naive girl who had led a sheltered life before becoming betrothed to George 1V before he became the infamous Prince of Wales.

All the paintings on Saturday show many of the qualities which Wikipedia states are necessary to portraiture in so many ways. The level of concentration and absorption is so evident. My favourite of the day is Sue’s. The face, which gazes directly at the viewer, takes up all of the picture space. The eyes are expressive and quite challenging and the proportions and tonal quality give it quite a historical context as if the subject has arrived here from some centuries ago and at the end of the session will vanish again back to the past. It demonstrates that an absolute likeness is not necessary for the magic to happen.

June 06, 2014

irony1

ˈʌɪrəni/

noun

the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect.

I shouldn’t really be writing this as I’ve strained my eye and looking at the computer is not easy but the muse is upon me so I shall battle onwards. Some of you will no doubt be saying, ‘Tom, think of your eye, the muse can wait, in fact give the muse the rest of the day off and we’ll just have to cope without your wise words’. But no despite one big red eye weeping copious tears I shall once more inflict, sorry share my thoughts and reflections.

Irony is a rarely used device at Redbrick Mill, our touchstone when making art is almost exclusively sincerity. We sincerely employ our various skills in the honest endeavour of respecting and recording the model. The exceptions are rare, however at times a little humour is irresistible. Our esteemed colleague, Russell occasionally slips in a curlicue or slight elongation, his line at times looks closer to Searle than Seurat. Periodically you can see the inner cartoonist emerging, not a bad affliction to have when time is limited and things need to be said in a hurry.

Anne is also no stranger to gentle humour with her eccentric comic colour combinations and proportional deviation (a LibDem policy I think). Her figures will at times have echoes of Grimaldi and Toulouse Lautrec. Their playful commedia del l’ arte presence, like a pierrot stripped seems to invest her figures with a beguiling innocence, an arcadian sub-text which is lovely. Mary Fedden also has the same ability to banish cynicism, even her plump lemons look sweet and that’s not a euphemism.

At the moment in Manchester there is an exhibition of works by Frank Auerbach, an artist not renowned for his biting wit and rapier one liners. His works along with Anselm Keifer to be seen later in the year seem to epitomize tortured sincerity; they could be seen as the high priests of the Glum Brigade. There is a strand of thought rooted in 19th Century Romanticism that is still prevalent, it’s the powerful mood music supporting a great deal of art and what it says is, ‘Art is Hell, it’s tough, it’s difficult and making it is demanding, so look hard and appreciate the pain endured to bring you this stuff’. This gives value to art even though most of what it suggests is not true. Art is hard to make like learning a new language is hard to do. Art is hard because we choose to make it hard, we raise our expectations and aim high because pride demands that of us. We want to be good and public seriousness is a way of communicating that struggle.

Picasso and Matisse were good, (just in case there was any doubt about that Gerry), and not only were they two of the greatest artists of the 20thC but also two of the greatest artist clowns. They can be seen to tumble and play with shapes, colours and ideas, like clowns in a ring, one gag building on another. Their joy and wit is irrepressible, sometimes child like they become infants again and see the world afresh, at other times especially with Picasso there is a dangerous black humour, mean but uncomfortably true, the old lecherous artist metamorphizing into a flea ridden baboon for example. The Matisse cut outs at the Tate are amongst other things the story of how much fun an old man could have with a big pair of scissors, some coloured paper, the adoration of the world and two pretty women climbing up and down ladders. Po-faced critics will tell you otherwise, but I know, believe me, I‘ve got the paper cuts and eye strain to prove it.

Humour is soft power, we gently navigate our way through the trials and tribulations of life by constructing narratives and poking fun, we assemble the chaos of events to suit our stories and slowly meaning emerges that makes sense or at least it does to us. Making art mirrors this process; we carefully gather and re-order stuff in an attempt to make a coherent meaningful whole hopefully with purpose and significance. The paint in the tube squeezed out and redistributed across a surface is but one way to order our thoughts, humour is another way and when art meets humour we often recognize two things, the banality of life and the joy of life. Anselm Keifer, a previously notoriously reticent artist, in a recent video is seen laughing and joking with his studio assistants, a likeable chap quite unlike his angst ridden public persona. A colleague from long ago once had dinner with Frank Auerbach and he told me two things about the artist. He had grubby wrists permanently stained from a life time of paddling in oil paint and that old Frank was a hoot, full of laughs and stories, the life and soul of the evening. I’ve always believed we make art to be happy even though we grimace whilst doing it, the art establishment for their own reasons might tell us otherwise but I don’t believe it. I admire those like Russell and Anne and others who make me smile and remind me that standing in a room looking at a naked person whilst someone plays Motown and sells a sofa below you is just inherently bonkers. To be honest as I get older the doom mongers attract me less and less and the humourists seem to make much more sense.